Borrowed Time
by Lys ap Adin
Summary: Oniisama E. Pre-series: Kaoru is delaying things. Kaoru x Rei, stylized smut and angst.


**Title:** Borrowed Time**  
Characters:** Orihara Kaoru, Asaka Rei**  
Summary:** Kaoru is delaying things.**  
Notes:** For the prompt, "just one more time." I'm pretty sure this is set before the series, just after Kaoru has found out she's ill. So, uh. Burning angst. (Of course, it's Oniisama E. Burning angst almost goes without saying.) 633 words.

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**Borrowed Time**

The only light came from a handful of candles on the table, clustered together and throwing shadows that danced as a draft made their candles bob.

That was Rei's touch; she liked strange, old-fashioned gestures like that. Completely impractical things, out of step and out of time, just like Rei herself was.

Like she was, too, if in a different sense, Kaoru thought, distantly. She brought her hand up and stroked it over the fall of Rei's hair to banish the notion. This was not the time for such thoughts.

Rei, drowsing against Kaoru's chest, stirred beneath her fingers. This had been a good day, one where the shadows had mostly retreated from Rei's eyes, had mostly stayed out of her laughter. The pills had stayed in a pocket--Kaoru wasn't fool enough to think that Rei hadn't brought them along, but if she'd taken any, it hadn't been where Kaoru had been able to see.

A good day, yes. An excellent one, even.

A fine way for things to end.

Rei stirred again. "I can hear you thinking from here," she said, voice rich and complacent.

Kaoru breathed out, quietly relieved that Rei had woken in the same mood. There was never any guarantee of that. "Oh, now you're claiming to be able to read minds, is that it?" she teased.

Rei lifted her head and smiled, languid, though her eyes were gleaming. "Didn't you know? I can do anything."

"Including buying into your own press, I see," Kaoru said, drawing her fingers through the disordered mess of Rei's hair, stroking it away from her face and the curve of her smile.

"It's not boasting if it's really true." Rei looked at her, eyes steady and clear. "What is it you were thinking?"

Kaoru opened her mouth to say it, and found herself saying, "Ask me that tomorrow," instead.

She was seven kinds of a coward.

Rei accepted that, the way she did most of Kaoru's foibles. "If you like."

"I do." Kaoru ran a fingertip along the curve of Rei's cheek. "Come up here." If she was going to postpone the inevitable, there was no point in wasting the time she'd stolen.

Rei's mouth quirked. "Bossy," she said, against the swell of Kaoru's breast, lips warm against her skin.

"Sometimes, yes," Kaoru agreed, breath catching.

Rei let herself be coaxed upwards, but only slowly, and she left kisses along every bit of Kaoru's skin as she did--slow, open-mouthed kisses that made Kaoru's skin feel like it was glowing. "I don't know if I want to be bossed around," she murmured against Kaoru's mouth, at length.

"I'm open to suggestions, if you think you have a better idea," Kaoru replied, hands moving down the slim lines of Rei's back, smooth and warm beneath her fingers.

"I might," Rei said, and showed her, with long clever fingers that skated over Kaoru's skin, and slow kisses that left Kaoru boneless beneath Rei as heat rippled through her, leisurely and relaxed, until it welled up and broke over her again, shaking her free of her moorings and all her good intentions.

Rei lounged over her after, smug as a cat. "See? Wasn't that a better idea?"

"Yes," Kaoru said, because it was true, and drew her down for another kiss.

It was selfish of her, perhaps--no, not perhaps, it simply _was_. She did it anyway, kissing Rei until Rei arched and moaned against her, and then she tumbled Rei back against the pillows and moved to settle over her.

Tomorrow was coming, and it wasn't going to be pleasant. But for now, dawn was still hours away, and tonight was enough time to be selfish in.

It had been a good last day. Kaoru intended to make it a good last night, too.

**- end -**

Comments, as always, are quite welcome.


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